April/May 2013

Dear Colleagues:

The Joint Commission, the organization that accredits and certifies
health care organizations and programs in the U.S., surveyed NYHQ at the
end of March. We were well prepared and we fared extremely well –
even better than we expected. The number of findings was among the
lowest so far across the country, with only two “direct impact”
findings.

With this success as the backdrop, I want to follow up on earlier
communication about focus and strategy as we navigate the forces of
health care reform, pressures on reimbursement and revenue, and
escalating costs to deliver care.

We must continue to strategically invest in the future of this
organization. And we are doing that. At the same time, we must ‘reset’
what it costs to deliver care and we need to do that without affecting
quality or safety for our patients. Here are a few highlights of our
strategy:

Expand Support for Primary Care Practice:
Increased support for community based primary care practices. As
well, we will attract more insured patients who are selective about
where they seek care for complex illnesses or procedures. For example,
our Whitestone Village practice site is off to a great start and we
expect to open in Astoria by the end of this year. We have created
flexible partnerships with Primary Care physicians. One size doesn’t fit
all; so, we have options for those who want to be a part of our 1,700 +
member medical staff.

Develop High Demand Service Lines:
We are a full service community hospital with a vast array of tertiary
services and a large footprint for outpatient services. We continue to
invest in specialized programs so that patients do not need to leave
Queens for complex care. These include: Cancer, Bone and Joint, Heart
and Vascular, Digestive and Liver, and Surgical Services.

Improve Relationships and Communication:
We have many people focusing on the real glue of our relationships with
patients and physicians who refer patients here – communication,
responsiveness and service. With progress here, it becomes easier
to provide excellence in customer service and a satisfying patient
experience. We want every physician to be confident that we
understand and act upon what your practice needs from us, and for each
patient to be glad s/he came here.

Maintain Positive Operating Margin:
It is no secret that revenue is under relentless pressure, and that
after several years of declines in reimbursement we must ‘reset’ the
cost of providing care. This is a critical juncture to better manage all
expenses including our people resources and expenses that are other than
salary-related. As we make adjustments to the reality of the evolving
healthcare environment, there are programs and people resources we need
to restructure to meet current demand. This multi-tiered effort
includes: Value Analysis to manage pricing, supply utilization, enhanced
skills and oversight for both coding and documentation, as well as
improvements in billing and collection. Several longer-term initiatives
are underway to trim costs and increase revenue, including a major push
to reduce average length of stay – as shorter stays are healthier for
patients and less costly for hospitals.

Yes, it seems that the healthcare delivery environment gets more
complicated each day. And, most days it does. There’s much
more involved than can be easily summarized in this letter, but I do
want everyone to understand, at least, the broad strokes of what is
changing and why. The result of our Joint Commission accreditation
survey speaks volumes about the progress and the future of NYHQ, and is
just one of many reasons we continue to earn the trust of those who
count upon us.

Sincerely,

Stephen S. Mills, F.A.C.H.E.

P.S.: This is the first electronic-only version of the President’s
Message. As always, this message is available on our website www.nyhq.org.
Please share this news with your colleagues and the Queens community. If
you hear of someone who did not receive an email notifying them about
the publication, they should contact Public Affairs & Marketing, 718
670-1065, to be added to distribution lists.

Read more about our preliminary Joint Commission results below in
the Programs section.

PEOPLE

We continue to build our base of medical talent and expertise so that
members of this community and physicians practicing in the area have
even more reasons to tap our services. Since the beginning of 2013, we
have added six experienced medical leaders. Please take a moment to
learn more about them:

Rajeev
Dayal, M.D., chief, Section of
Vascular Surgery, will join us on May 1.
He comes to us from North Shore-Long
Island Jewish Medical Center, and prior
to that, NewYork-Presbyterian/ Columbia
University Medical Center where he
served as assistant professor, Clinical
Surgery and director, Carotid Stenting.

Ellen
Cohen, M.D., is now our
associate chairperson and residency
program director in the Department of
Medicine. She comes to us from Newark
Beth Israel Medical Center where she
served as vice chairman of Education and
residency program director for the
Department of Medicine.

Christopher
Foglia, M.D., F.A.C.S.,
chief, Section of Colorectal Surgery,
joined NYHQ from Danbury Hospital in
Connecticut where he served as assistant
program director for the General Surgery
Residency Program. He is board certified
in Colon and Rectal Surgery.

Justin
A. Classie, M.D., medical
director, Sports Medicine, joined the
Orthopaedics & Rehabilitation
program from SUNY Downstate Medical
Center in Brooklyn where he served in
the same role.

Beth
Siegel, M.D., F.A.C.S.,
director, Breast Center, joined us from
New York University School of Medicine
where she served as assistant clinical
professor for the Department of
Surgery.

William
Rodgers, Ph.D., M.D., is our new
chairman of Pathology and Clinical
Laboratories. Dr. Rodgers came to us
from Lenox Hill Hospital (now part of
North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health
System) where he served in the same
role.

For more information about the physicians above, click each name to
follow the link. The link brings you to each physician’s profile, which
includes contact information, in the Find a Doctor directory on www.nyhq.org.
Or, browse the complete directory at www.nyhq.org/find-a-doctor-queens.

Medical Staff - Update your Physician Profiles

Mobile traffic to www.nyhq.org
via a mobile device such as a smart
phone or iPad — now accounts for 25
percent of our website visits and
continues to grow as more people use our
site as a tool from anywhere,
anytime.

Our online physician directory (Find a
Doctor on www.nyhq.org)
is fed by the database managed by the
Medical Staff Society office. This Find
a Doctor directory on nyhq.org was used
more than 300,000 times in 2012- that’s
nearly 1,000 times a day. The content is
searchable by search engines such as
Google.

You may have clicked the links above to
view our new physicians’ profiles in our
Find a Doctor directory. Each member of
our medical staff has a profile and it
is his/her responsibility to keep that
profile current.

Some users are looking for a doctor to
make an appointment, and others such as
physician practices are seeking your
contact information to make a referral.
For two examples of a well-done online
profile, visit the profiles of Ambrose
Pipia, M.D. and Todd
Kerwin, M.D.

Please Update Your Information:

Profile information in the hospital’s public online medical
staff directory (nyhq.org) is supplied by a database managed by
the New York Hospital Queens Medical Staff Society

Files must be .jpg, .eps, .tiff or .psd format
(resolution of at least 300 dpi)

The image must be 1500 x 2100 pixels and a
minimum of 800 KB file size

Note, Public Affairs & Marketing offers free
photo sessions for medical staff at least twice
a year. Sessions are announced in INSIGHT
e-Weekly and by the Medical Staff Society
office. Public Affairs & Marketing can help
arrange photography at other times, as well.

Medical and Professional Staff and Appointments:

The Department of Emergency Medicine welcomes several physicians to our
medical staff:

Rachael Slivka, M.D., joins NYHQ as an attending physician. Dr.
Slivka earned her medical degree from Drexel University
College of Medicine in Philadelphia and completed her residency in
Emergency Medicine right here at NYHQ.

Varvara (Barbara) Fyntanidou, M.D., an anesthesiologist from
Thessaloniki, Greece, joins us as the latest fellow participating in the
Stavros Niarchos Foundation - New York Hospital Queens Hellenic-American
Emergency Medicine Exchange Program. Dr. Fyntanidou plans to use the
skills and observations she acquires to assist in the development of an
emergency medicine specialty in Greece. This exchange program is
coordinated by Michael S. Radeos, M.D., M.P.H., research
director, Emergency Medicine and the American College of Emergency
Physicians’ international ambassador to Greece.

Professional and Personal Achievements and Sharing Expertise to
Medical Audiences and in the Community:

In May, Cynthia X. Pan, M.D., chief,
Division of Geriatrics and Palliative Care
Medicine and director, Geriatrics Fellowship
Program, will attend the American Geriatrics
Society (AGS) Meeting in Grapevine, Texas. Dr.
Pan is chair of the Ethnogeriatrics Committee
and a member of the Steering Committee of the
AGS.

Geriatrics fellows Archana Bushan, M.D., and Christopher Tan,
M.D., will present at the AGS meeting. Dr. Bushan will present “An
Educational Intervention to Improve Discussions About Resuscitation
Decisions in a Community Hospital” and Dr. Tan will present “Cognitive
Changes After Surgery in the Elderly: Does Minimally Invasive Surgery
Influence the Incidence of Postoperative Cognitive Changes Compared to
Open Colon Surgery?”

In March, Susan Lee, M.D., attending
surgeon, Breast Center, was a guest speaker at
the Brooklyn Hospital Breast Symposium where she
presented an update on breast cancer.

Anita Volpe, D.N.P., A.P.R.N., F.N.P., director, Perioperative
Patient Safety and Quality, was appointed to the international Editorial
Review Board of Clinical Nursing Studies. As a member of the
review board, she will receive abstracts for clinical review and analyze
the relevance of the work, the methodology and results.

Steven S. Wright, M.D., assistant residency director, Emergency
Medicine, presented a lecture to medical students from the New York
Medical College in Valhalla, N.Y. on the topic of “How to Navigate the
Emergency Medicine Waters.”

Nidhi Garg, M.D., emergency medicine resident, presented her
work entitled “Derangements of mean arterial blood pressure, pulse
oximetry and hematocrit as predictors of 28 day mortality in adult
Emergency Department patients with suspected infection” at the INDUS-EM
conference in Nashik, India. Her work was supported by the TeamHealth
INDO-US Grant Award for Global Emergency Medical Sciences.

Dr. Garg and Alison E. Suarez, M.D., associate residency
director, Emergency Medicine had a manuscript, “The Shock Index and
Early Recognition of Sepsis in the Emergency Department – A Pilot
Study,” published in the Western Journal of Emergency Medicine.

Dr. Garg, Dr. Suarez and Dr. Radeos were published in the
Academic Emergency Medicine for the study “Hyperlactatemia Affects the
Association of Hyperglycemia with Mortality in Non-Diabetic Adults with
Sepsis.”

Dr. Suarez and Dr. Slivka were published in the Annals
of Emergency Medicine for the study “Acute Superior Vena Cava
Syndrome After Rupture of Kommerell’s Diverticulum: A Case Report.”

Congratulations to Alex Stessin, M.D., fourth year resident,
Radiation Oncology, on receiving the 2013 ASCO Young Investigator Award
from Conquer Cancer Foundation. He received a $50,000 grant for lab
research on the study "Evaluating FTY720 as a selective neuroprotector
during cranial irradiation."

Marilyn Galler, M.D., associate director,
Dialysis Facilities and director, Renal
Fellowship program, was selected as one of the
2013 Top Women in Business in Queens by the
Queens Courier.

PROGRAMS

Excellent NYHQ Performance on Joint Commission Accreditation Survey
In March we completed the five-day unannounced accreditation survey by
the Joint Commission. The results are truly excellent! While we were
well prepared and expected to do well, our preliminary results are among
the top in the entire country. This is no accident. Each and every
person at NYHQ worked hard to perform in ways that made sure the survey
would reflect our very real progress, and our rightful place as a high
quality source of trusted expertise and care. The surveyors were
impressed by our passion and excitement for elevating the quality of
care we give our patients. Questions? Adam Weinstein, vice
president, Regulatory Affairs & Corporate Compliance, 718-670- 2101.

American Cancer Society Cancer Prevention Study-3
NYHQ will be an enrollment site for the American Cancer Society Study-3.
This study will examine who gets cancer and why,
in the hopes of eliminating it. NYHQ was asked to be an enrollment site
because of our diverse community and employee population.

Enrollment will take place on May 22, from 11:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., in
our Lang Lobby. Please share this information with friends, family and
members of the community. To make an appointment for enrollment,
employees can go to www.nyhq.org/For_Employees and members of the
community to www.cps3queens.org.
Questions? Camille Paredes, 718-670- 2365 or
cap9074@nyp.org.

7th Annual Residents and Fellows Research Day
The Theresa & Eugene M. Lang Center for Research and Education will
hold the 7th Annual Residents and Fellows Research Day on May 29, from
7:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m., in the Lang Auditorium. This program was created
to foster research among NYHQ physicians in training. This year will
feature 13 oral and 68 poster presentations in 14 specialty areas.
Awards for excellence will be given at 1 p.m., following the
presentations. No RSVP is necessary to attend the oral and poster
presentations. All are welcome. For the presentation schedule, contact
the Lang Research Center at (718) 670-2914.

NYHQ Joins Maternal-Fetal Medicine Units Network
The Theresa and Eugene M. Lang Center for Research and Education joins
the Maternal-Fetal Medicine Units (MFMU) Network with Columbia
University Medical Center (CUMC). As a satellite of CUMC, we are one of
14 clinical centers in the network. As part of the network, Daniel
Skupski, M.D., director, Maternal-Fetal Medicine, will conduct two
studies: a Randomized Trial to Prevent Congenital Cytomegalovirus (CMV)
Infection and an Observational Study of Hepatitis C Virus (HCV) in
Pregnancy.

NYHQ is First Hospital to Meet Mayor’s Carbon Challenge
On April 22, NYHQ celebrated Earth Day by hosting a fair that showcased
the hospital’s green initiatives that benefit the community, patients
and the bottom line. The hospital’s green program has grown to include
waste and energy reduction strategies, a recycling program,
infrastructure projects and a “green roof” installation of plants to
reduce water runoff.

Many of these initiatives came to fruition after Mayor Bloomberg
challenged area hospitals, universities and businesses to reduce overall
greenhouse gas emissions by 30 percent in ten years. Last month, the
Mayor announced that NYHQ is the first participating hospital to meet
and exceed that target in only two years with a reduction of 31 percent
to date!

Emergency Department Observation Unit (EDOU) Opens
The Emergency Department Observation Unit (EDOU) is now open. The 15-bed
unit is located within the Early Treatment of Admitted Patients (ETAP)
Unit. It is for patients who may not require an extended inpatient
hospitalization but are in need of eight to 24 hours of stabilization
and treatment beyond what is usually provided in the ED prior to
discharge. A team of health care providers, including a physician,
nurse and case manager, assess and manage patients with a focus on
prompt diagnostic testing, consultation, re-evaluation, and disposition.
The attending physician in the EDOU can be reached for consultation or
questions at 718-670- 2361.

The following physicians work in our new Emergency Department
Observation Unit:

Mikhail Yakubov, D.O., director of the unit, has served as an
attending physician here for five years. He earned his medical degree
from the New York College of Osteopathic Medicine and completed his
residency in Internal Medicine at Forest Hills Hospital.

Lali Levi, D.O., attending physician, comes to us from Franklin
Hospital in Valley Stream, N.Y. where she served as a hospitalist.
She earned her medical degree from New York College of Osteopathic
Medicine and completed her residency in Internal Medicine right here at
NYHQ.

Neubert Phillippe, M.D., attending physician, completed his
residency in Family Medicine at Southside Hospital in Bay Shore, NY,
where he served as chief resident. He earned his medical degree from
SUNY Albany School of Medicine.

Ken Truong, M.D., attending physician, comes to us from Franklin
Hospital in Valley Stream, N.Y. where he served as a hospitalist. He
earned his medical degree from SUNY Downstate College of Medicine and
completed his residency at North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System.

PROGRESS

NYHQ Community Advisory Council Installs Veronica Tsang as New
Chairperson

Members of NYHQ administration and the Community Advisory Council as
well as Assembly Member Nily Rozic and Senator Toby Stavisky
gathered for the installation of Veronica Tsang, senior vice
president, Branch Administration, Eastern Regions, Cathay Bank and
president, The Rotary Club of Flushing, as the new chairperson of the
New York Hospital Queens Community Advisory Council.

The NYHQ Community Advisory Council is a group of Queens business
leaders and civic-minded individuals who assist the hospital in
development, public affairs, community and government relations, and
make recommendations for the improvement of facilities
and programs.

The council has taken on five new initiatives that include:

Fundraising for the cancer center expansion

Assessment of community needs

Recruitment of multi-lingual volunteers

Neighborhood relations

Decision maker/influencer relations to support clinical programs

First United Methodist Church in Flushing Donates Funds to Cancer
Center Expansion
The First United Methodist Church in Flushing has generously donated
$500 toward the expansion of our cancer center. Terence Park,
member of the NYHQ Community Advisory Council, assisted in building this
important relationship between his church and our hospital.

A Spring Night Gala to Honor Georgia and Dimitrios Kaloidis
We will host our annual fundraising event, A Spring Night Gala, on
Wednesday, June 5, at the American Museum of Natural History. Building
on the momentum from last year’s gala, proceeds will benefit the
continued development of our comprehensive cancer program that
integrates all the current diagnostic and treatment modalities into an
expanded Cancer Center.

The 2013 Pacesetter Award, the highest honor given by the hospital, will
be presented to Georgia and Dimitrios Kaloidis. They will
be honored for their charitable work benefiting educational, religious
and health care institutions both in the U.S. and Greece. We will also
honor Mr. and Mrs. Kaloidis for their longstanding leadership and
generous support of the NYHQ Heart & Vascular Center. Contact Julie
Varghese, director, Special Events, at juv9007@nyp.org or (718)
670-1564 for tickets, underwriting opportunities, sponsorship
information or to be added to our mailing list.

Web Traffic to NYHQ.org Grows

In the first quarter of 2013, we had a total of 750,000 page visits to www.nyhq.org.
To get the most out of our website, and maximize search engine
opportunities, we must keep the content updated and continually build
and freshen it.

To provide an update, or make a suggestion about something to be
included, contact your department’s trained website content manager. If
you are unsure about who is the appropriate content manager ask a
director, vice president or clinical chairman for that area. If you
would like to be trained as a content manager, contact our web manager, Beth
Granger, at webmanager@nyhq.org.